Cassini: Small Moon Makes Big Waves (Daphnis)

[bystander]

NASA | JPL-Caltech | Cassini Solstice Mission | CICLOPS | 2012 Dec 31

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Small Moon Makes Big Waves

Saturn's small moon Daphnis is caught in the act of raising waves on the edges of the Keeler gap. Waves like these allow scientists to locate small moons in gaps and measure their masses.

For more on Daphnis (5 miles, 8 kilometers across) and the Keeler gap, see Wave Shadows in Motion and Discovery of the Wavemaker.

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 13 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 14, 2012.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 484,000 miles (778,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 4 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel. The F ring has been brightened by a factor of 1.5 relative to the main rings to enhance visibility.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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[owlice]

I love this little moon, this 5 miles of rock, the real estate that rocks and waves the rings of Saturn! How stunning that such a small bit of moonlet can move so many smaller bits around an enormous brightly shining ringed orb! And how utterly jaw-droppingly amazing it is that we can know this, see this, watch it happen!